Social media significantly affects business, and its impact on the bottom line will only grow. There’s no doubt that social media has transformed the business world, and this is true for all businesses, from giant firms to startup businesses. Social media has evolved to become more than a communication medium. It is now an all-encompassing marketing channel that serves advertising, customer feedback, and sales functions.
Social media’s evolution and ubiquity have also caused businesses to adapt and evolve. Successful businesses today understand that social media can greatly influence their products’ perception and, in turn, affect sales.
Jim DePalma has discussed social media’s negative and positive impacts on business.
Positive Effects of Social Media According to Jim DePalma
- Brand Awareness
Raising brand awareness is the most significant advantage of social media. Whether a big firm or a startup, social media can help spread your marketing messages to the targeted audience and create brand awareness among them.
Jim DePalma believes that businesses need to develop social media strategies tailored specifically for social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to make a brand prominent. Businesses need to create and post interesting, creative content that would appeal to the brand’s target audience. They also need to run paid ad campaigns to make sure the content with the marketing messages reaches the right audience and results in customer acquisition or initiates trials.
As people from around the world access social media, you can use your digital marketing efforts to expand geographically and get international customers. This way, social media allows your business to reach a bigger audience.
2. Better Communication
Digital marketing not only creates brand awareness but allows you to communicate with your clients all over the world.
Initially, brand and customer relations were limited to shop visits or phone calls, but with social media, communication has become efficient, frequent, and quick. Earlier, people had to visit brick-and-mortar premises or make a phone call to request a replacement and send complaints and feedback. Social media has allowed customers to quickly contact brands via their websites or social networking pages.
Negative Effects of Social Media According to Jim DePalma
1. Greater Scrutiny
Feedback, both positive and negative, and complaints may appear publicly on social media platforms. This transparency has opened businesses to higher public scrutiny and made it necessary for them to respond well. On the flip side, it’s also a great opportunity for brands to demonstrate their customer-oriented ethos. Such positive instances can even attract new customers.
2. Coming Under Fire for Employee Misbehavior
Another way businesses can come under fire on social media is their employee’s social media usage. It’s possible that employees behave unethically or impolitely, which gets recorded and posted online. In such cases, the more social media savvy users might deduce where the individual works and start a campaign to pressure their place of employment to take action. In most cases, social media audiences want the company to terminate the person’s employment, which means social media audiences force the company’s hand and heavily influence management decisions.
3. Release of Confidential Information
Social media can also be a source of confidential information leaking. It is possible that a business’s plans, whether interim or final, are leaked before the company is ready to share them with the world. In such cases, the leakers are disgruntled employees or concerned whistleblowers. In some cases, leaks are to be expected, especially when the product is much anticipated or impacts existing customers majorly. In such cases, businesses have to be prepared to issue statements and get the leaked information off social media by knowing beforehand the procedures for each social media platform. However, businesses should also know that once a piece of confidential information is online, there is no way to recover it. Hence, their efforts should be more focused on addressing queries resulting from the leaks.
Conclusion by Jim DePalma
Finally, we know that social media positively and negatively impact your business. Jim DePalma agrees that social media has brought significant positive changes for businesses, but it does come with risks. Having pertinent knowledge of how to promote and control the business’s public perception using social media helps eliminate those threats and boost your business online.